The Rime of The Ancient Mariner, Class X

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

In A Nutshell

Even though Samuel Taylor Coleridge 's Rime of the Ancient Mariner is one of the most influential poems in the English language, it's still a doozy of a confusing read. It's about an old sailor who stops a wedding guest from entering a wedding celebration, and says, essentially, "I know you want to get your drink and your dance on, but now I'm going to tell you a really long story about how I got my entire crew killed and almost died myself because I acted like a jerk while sailing the far reaches of the globe."

Chances are that this poem is unlike anything you've read before. It will probably leave you with a bunch of questions: Why does Coleridge speak in such an old-fashioned voice? Why does the poem sound so corny? Did Coleridge think this poem was a big joke? Why is the Mariner saved after committing such an atrocious act? And, our favorite: Why on earth did the Mariner shoot the albatross!? None of these questions are stupid or silly. Depending on your tolerance for ghost stories that are filled with strange images and questions that never get answered, you'll either be fascinated by the Mariner and his crazy exploits, or you'll be completely frustrated by him. Either way, have patience, and the poem will seem richer the more time you spend with it.

Why Should I Care?

If there's one phrase to take away from this poem, it's "albatross around the neck." Let us explain:

Have you ever done something stupid and known it was stupid at the time? It's one thing to mess up because you haven't thought through the consequences of your action. It's quite another to think, "Yeah, if I do this, it's going to cause huge problems for me, and I'm going to wish I hadn't done it, but I'm going to do it anyway."

Maybe your parents said that if you went out a certain night you'd be grounded for a month, but you decide to do it anyway, knowing full well that your parents will find out, and it totally won't be worth it. That's a trivial example. How about if a close friend or family member tries to help you, and for no apparent reason, you do something nasty that drives them away? That's more like it.

The Mariner's act of shooting the albatross (that had once brought good luck to his ship) is the mother of irrational, self-defeating acts. He never offers a good explanation for why he does it, and his crewmates get so upset that they hang the dead albatross around his neck as a burden, so he won't forget what he did. To have an albatross around your neck is to have a constant reminder of a big mistake you made. Instead of the gift that keeps on giving, it's the blunder that keeps on taking. As in, "I spent all my money on that motorcycle because I thought it would be cool, but now I can't sell it, and it's too expensive to maintain. That thing is just an albatross around my neck."

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Summary

Three guys are on the way to a wedding celebration when an old sailor (the Mariner) stops one of them at the door (we'll call him the Wedding Guest). Using his hypnotic eyes to hold the attention of the Wedding Guest, he starts telling a story about a disastrous journey he took. The Wedding Guest really wants to go party, but he can't pry himself away from this grizzled old mariner. The Mariner begins his story. They left port, and the ship sailed down near Antarctica to get away from a bad storm, but then they get caught in a dangerous, foggy ice field. An albatross shows up to steer them through the fog and provide good winds, but then the Mariner decides to shoot it. Oops.

Pretty soon the sailors lose their wind, and it gets really hot. They run out of water, and everyone blames the Mariner. The ship seems to be haunted by a bad spirit, and weird stuff starts appearing, like slimy creatures that walk on the ocean. The Mariner's crewmates decide to hang the dead albatross around his neck to remind him of his error.

Everyone is literally dying of thirst. The Mariner sees another ship's sail at a distance. He wants to yell out, but his mouth is too dry, so he sucks some of his own blood to moisten his lips. He's like, "A ship! We're saved." Sadly, the ship is a ghost ship piloted by two spirits, Death and Life-in-Death, who have to be the last people you'd want to meet on a journey. Everyone on the Mariner's ship dies.

The wedding guest realizes, "Ah! You're a ghost!" But the Mariner says, "Well, actually, I was the only one who didn't die." He continues his story: he's on a boat with a lot of dead bodies, surrounded by an ocean full of slimy things. Worse, these slimy things are nasty water snakes. But the Mariner escapes his curse by unconsciously blessing the hideous snakes, and the albatross drops off his neck into the ocean.

The Mariner falls into a sweet sleep, and it finally rains when he wakes up. A storm strikes up in the distance, and all the dead sailors rise like zombies to pilot the ship. The sailors don't actually come back to life. Instead, angels fill their bodies, and another supernatural spirit under the ocean seems to push the boat. The Mariner faints and hears two voices talking about how he killed the albatross and still has more penance to do. These two mysterious voices explain how the ship is moving.

After a speedy journey, the ship ends up back in port again. The Mariner sees angels standing next to the bodies of all his crewmates. Then a rescue boat shows up to take him back to shore. The Mariner is happy that a guy called "the hermit" is on the rescue boat. The hermit is in a good mood. All of a sudden there's a loud noise, and the Mariner's ship sinks. The hermit's boat picks up the Mariner.

When they get on shore, the Mariner is desperate to tell his story to the hermit. He feels a terrible pain until the story had been told.

In fact, the Mariner says that he still has the same painful need to tell his story, which is why he stopped the Wedding Guest on this occasion. Wrapping up, the Mariner tells the Wedding Guest that he needs to learn how to say his prayers and love other people and things. Then the Mariner leaves, and the Wedding Guest no longer wants to enter the wedding. He goes home and wakes up the next day, as the famous last lines go, "a sadder and a wiser man."

Part I Summary

Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.

Stanzas 1-5

• Imagine that this poem starts out like the Vince Vaughn-Owen Wilson buddy comedy Wedding Crashers. Three scruffy-looking bachelors are getting ready to go into this wedding, hoping to party, meet some girls, and generally have a good time. They're laughing and swaggering as they approach the door to the party.
• But standing outside the door you've got this old bearded mariner who suddenly grabs one of the guys. The other two guys enter the wedding feast, and they're like, "See ya in there."
• The Mariner starts to tell a story as if it were programmed into his brain, and the Wedding Guest is understandably impatient, but also kind of rude. He says something like, "Gross. You're old and crazy. Let me go."
• The Mariner immediately ("eftsoons") lets go of the guest, but the magnetic draw of his eyes is even more powerful than his grip.
• The Wedding Guest has no hope of escape. He sits on a rock and listens like a little boy ("three-years' child") at story time. It's going to be a long night.

Stanzas 6-10

• The Mariner starts his story:
• When the Mariner's ship left port, everyone was in a good mood. They sailed out and watched the church ("kirk"), the hill, and finally, the town lighthouse disappear from sight as the ship "dropped" below the horizon.
• Days went by, and the sun rose on the "left" and set on the "right." Every day the sun seemed to rise "higher," signaling that they were approaching the equator. Finally the sun was directly over the ship's mast at noon, meaning they had reached the equator.
• Suddenly the Wedding Guest has second thoughts as he realizes just how long this story is going to be.
• They started playing the music! The bride is led to the dance hall by the entertainers ("merry minstrelsy")! The wine! The women! He's missing out!
• The guest "beats his breast" in a sign of distress.
• But, as we said, there's something about that mariner that gives him power over the Wedding Guest. Something about his eyes…

Stanzas 11-15

• The Mariner continues his story:
• Near the equator, a storm strikes. The storm is compared to a huge flying creature that chases the ship southward. It drives them all the way down to the Arctic, where they start to see huge icebergs that look green in the clear water.
• The sailors find themselves in the middle of an ice field with ice "here," "there," everywhere! Obviously there are no people or animals in sight. The giant icebergs making loud cracking, groaning sounds, like noises you might hear in a trance ("swound").
• At this point, everyone on the boat is convinced that they're done for.

Stanzas 16-20

• Everyone is happy to see another living thing fly past the ship: an albatross! You know, the bird with huge, white wings that can fly long distances across the ocean? Yeah, that one.
• The albatross seems particularly friendly, almost as if it were a person. And not just a person, but a good "Christian soul." Somehow the bird seems related to God and peace.
• The sailors feed the bird, and naturally it sticks around. Soon enough, the ice that had trapped them splits wide enough apart for the ship to sail through.
• More good things happen to the ship.
• A south wind that will take them back up north again starts to blow. The albatross continues to follow the boat in good fortune, and everyone treats it like their pet.
• The albatross follows them around for nine nights, or "vespers." It's still pretty foggy outside, and the moon glows through the fog at night.
• Then people start to notice that the Mariner has this sickly look on his face. They try to cheer up him: "What's wrong, man? Don't let the fiends get you down!"
• And the mariner essentially says, "Remember that albatross that seemed so mysteriously connected to all our good fortune?" Gulp. Uh-huh? "Well, I kind of took my crossbow and shot it." YOU DID WHAT?!

Stanzas 21-25

• At least time doesn't stop after he kills the albatross. The sun keeps rising and setting just as before, and the weather remains misty. Since the sailors are now traveling north instead of south, the sun rises on the right and sets on the left, instead of the other way around, as in Part I, Stanza 6.
• But, leave not doubt, that bird is as dead as a doornail. The sailors' favorite pet is gone. If you have ever read any other literature about sailors, like Melville's Moby-Dick, you might know that they take their good luck charms very seriously.
• The sailors are convinced that the bird brought them the good winds, and they all agree ("averred") that the Mariner has done a bad, bad thing.
• But then the mist goes away, and the sailors change their minds. Instead of bringing the good winds (hooray!), the sailors decide that the bird was responsible for the fog that was making it so hard to see (boo!). They now blame the bird for bad luck. Those fickle sailors.
• Everything is going along quite well for the crew. They carve the mounds or "furrows" of the waves with the wind at their back. They make their way into uncharted territory.

Stanzas 26-30

• One tip for reading this poem: conditions change really fast. It only took a stanza for the sailors to decide that the albatross was really a bad luck charm instead of a good one. Here, it only takes a stanza for the weather to turn from delightful to dreadful.
• In short, they lose the good breeze at their backs, and without a breeze to fill the sails, the ship can't move. Suddenly, the "silence" of the uncharted waters sounds very ominous.
• The sun is small and "blood-red": it looks very far away. The sky has a strange fiery color, but their main problem is a lack of water. If they don't find some kind of land (or, heck, ice), they will all die of thirst.
• There's no wind. Literally. Not even a tiny gust. The ocean looks like glass, and the scene is so motionless that it could be a painting.
• Without any water, even the "boards" – the wood planks of the ship – start to dry up and "shrink." So…thirsty!
• Um, so, sailors, what was that you were saying about being glad that the albatross was dead?

Stanzas 31-34

• When the world gets dry, the ocean starts to "rot" from the dryness. Think of a pond that is drying up, and how it turns brackish (extra-salty) and starts growing nasty algae. The ocean around the ship is undergoing a similar transformation. Its surface turns "slimy" and gross, slimy creatures start to appear.
• These creatures aren't fish: they have "legs." Are they walking on the water, or what? Hard to tell what's going on here, but the poem is beginning to turn strange.
• Crazy, disturbing lights start to appear at night, and the water "burns" green, blue, and white. If you wanted to be scientific about it, you might guess that the Mariner is seeing the phenomenon of "phosphorescence." Some kinds of algae and tiny animals can literally "glow" in the water in certain times of year.
• But Coleridge isn't being scientific, he's being supernatural. Some of the sailors start to dream that a spirit deep under the ocean has been following the ship ever since they left the Arctic. Needless to say, it's not a happy, fuzzy spirit.
• The crew becomes so thirsty that they stop producing saliva and cannot talk. But they can still give the stink-eye to the Mariner. "This is all your fault."
• In one of the poem's most famous images, they hang the dead albatross around his neck.
• Side note: First, when did they pick up the albatross? We never heard about that one. Second, that albatross must really stink to high heavens.

Weather: The Good, The Bad, The Icy, The Dry

Symbol Analysis

In pretty much any poem or novel about life at sea, you can expect quite a lot of attention to be devoted to the weather. But who could have expected a huge fog near Antarctica, a massive drought that turns the ocean into a swamp, or a lightning show that gets dead people moving again? Here's the general trajectory: the Mariner's ship gets driven down south by a bad storm, then the albatross guides them through fog and ice, then they suffer a truly horrifying, windless drought, the Mariner sees a massive and supernatural night-time storm, and he finally gets carried by invisible forces back to the bay.

• Part I.Stanzas 11-12: The storm that drives the ship south is compared metaphorically to some kind of winged predator on the hunt. The ship is like the animal at ground level that runs in the "shadow" of the predator to escape it.
• I.15: The ice near Antarctica makes loud cracking noises that sound "like noises in a swound," that is, like the sounds a fainting person might hear. The word "like" makes clear that this is a simile.
• II.25: This stanza, describing the good weather (which lasts all of one stanza) enjoyed by the crew, features the alliterative repetition of the "f" sound, as in "furrow follow free."
• II.28: When the wind dies and the ship can't move, the scene is compared using simile to a motionless painting.
• II.29: The ship's shrunken wood boards become central image of the terrible dryness that the killing of the albatross produces.
• II.33: The crew becomes so thirsty that it's as if their mouths were full of dry "soot," or ashes, which is a simile.

Moon, Sun, and Stars

Symbol Analysis

What is this, an astrology lesson? With the attention he pays to the moon, sun, and stars, you'd think the Mariner had a Tarot card collection. Well, that's actually not too far, considering that these phenomena are invested with supernatural powers, particularly after the Mariner shoots the albatross. Above all, the moon is calling the shots, both in terms of the Mariner's punishment and his eventual penance. Watch out for any images of the moon and its white light.

• Part I.Stanza 19: The first image of the moon is of the white light shining through the fog down in the Arctic. Sounds beautiful, right? Wait until those sailors see what the moon has in store for them.
• II.27: When things start to go bad for the crew, the sun's color is compared to blood, and, more ominously, its size is the same as the moon's.

The Albatross

Symbol Analysis

We've got really mixed feelings about the albatross. If it hadn't come along, then sure, the whole crew probably would have died in that ice field. But, to be frank, the consequences of shooting the albatross seem almost worse than death. Maybe that's because shooting it is a completely senseless act. As a persecuted figure of salvation, the albatross resembles Christ in many ways, especially when you consider that a bird often symbolizes Christ.

• Part I.Stanza 16: The albatross is treated like a person, a "Christian soul," by the lonely sailors. In Christian symbolism, Jesus Christ is sometimes compared metaphorically to a bird, so the albatross could be a symbol for Christ.
• II.23-24: Coleridge uses parallelism to show how the sailors quickly change their mind about whether killing the albatross is bad or good. The structure of the last four lines of these stanzas is the same, starting with "Then all averred" (agreed) and continuing with "bird to slay."
• II.24: The albatross becomes the defining symbol of the Mariner's big mistake. As a symbol of the burden of sin, it is compared explicitly to the cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified.

Colors

Symbol Analysis

The importance of colors in this poem goes along with the interest in the supernatural (see below) and specific patterns of images like the moon and sun (see above). However, there's so much "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds"-type craziness going on with sea snakes and angels and ice that we just wanted to point it out to y'all.

• Part I.Stanza 13: The icebergs in the Arctic Ocean are compared to the green color of an emerald (simile). The color green is the ocean's "normal" color in this poem.
• II.31: The water begins to turn strange colors at night after the albatross has been killed. These supernatural green, blue, and white lights are compared in a simile to "witch's oils," which are used for spells and enchantments

The Religious and the Supernatural

Symbol Analysis

It's hard to separate the religious, spiritual, and supernatural in this poem: welcome to Romanticism. By the end of the poem, the message of the Mariner's bizarre and violent story has become, "Go to church and say your prayers, lad." Huh? This message doesn't seem to fit well with the poem's religious and supernatural imagery, which doesn't adhere to traditional Christian themes. Rather, the poem seems more like a radical re-working of Christian symbols. Keep an eye out for the Mariner's attempts to pray in the second half of the poem.

• Part II.Stanza 32: The sailors begin to dream of a malevolent spirit following them from nine fathoms under the ocean.

·         Speaker Point of View

·         Who is the speaker, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?

·         You got to love a speaker that says eleven words in the first two lines before passing the poem off to a strange old man who likes to hang around outside wedding celebrations. But in all seriousness, the speaker of the poem is basically a narrator who sets up the action in this dramatic poem. The narrative has two levels: there's the story of the Mariner and the Wedding Guest, and then there's the story-within-a-story of the Mariner's voyage, which takes up most of the poem. We can comment briefly on the nature of the narrator of each story.

The narrator of the poem has a third-person limited perspective. That is, he knows the thoughts of only one of the two characters, the Wedding Guest. But he stays out of the way for most of the poem, and we don't learn the Wedding Guest's thoughts until the end, when we discover how he became a sadder and wiser man. At the beginning of the poem, the narrator uses one of the most ingeniously simple devices we've seen: "It is an ancient mariner…" "It is"! Brilliant. He doesn't even present the narrative as a story, he just points and says, "Look. There he is – that old sailor. Have fun, kids." Easiest narrator job ever. Then again, one of the more interesting questions in the poem is: is the narrator the "sadder and wiser" version of the Wedding Guest? Are they the same person? That, at least, would help explain how the narrator knows his thoughts at the end.

Both the narrator and the Mariner use old-school language, with words like "stoppest," and, our favorite, "eftsoons." And by old school, we don't mean nineteenth century, we mean closer to fourteenth century. Coleridge writes the poem in the voice of popular English balladeers, like the person who sung the famous ballad "Sir Patrick Spens." Many of the famous English ballads didn't have a single, named author. Instead, they were collective works that were revised and re-revised through the years, as different performers added their own touches.

As for the Mariner, he's also a true performer. In fact, his position mirrors that of the popular balladeer, in that he travels from place to place repeating his tale to different audiences. Except that he finds his audiences using his Troubled Soul Detector. Like any oral poet worth his salt, the Mariner uses lots and lots of repetition so that the listener will remember important things that happen. So, for example, the lines: "The ice was here, the ice was there, / The ice was all around." These lines might make a reader shout, "We get the point! Lots of ice!" but for the listener without a text, it helps him keep the elements of this very long story in place.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Theme of Pride

In Christian writings, pride is one of the most basic and important sins, the one has been getting humans in hot water ever since Adam and Eve. As the proverb says, pride goeth before the fall. While it's not clear exactly why the Mariner shoots the albatross in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the answer has something to do with pride. He obviously didn't intend to bring about drought and death to the crew, but he thought they could do without this bird whose arrival happened to coincide with a lot of good luck. The poem takes elements from the stories of Adam and Eve and the crucifixion of Christ and weaves them into an entirely original take on man's pride.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Theme of Suffering

Suffering is sometimes the only way to change someone's habits for good, and it takes a whole lot of this painful medicine in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to make the Mariner realize that all of nature's creations are worthy of love and respect. The entire poem, but especially the middle section concerning the drought, contains enough suffering to last several lifetimes. Our vote for the most cringe-worthy moment is when the Mariner has to bite his arm to wet his black lips with his own blood so that he can yell.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Theme of Isolation

The Mariner in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner seems to have been a pretty sociable guy before he took that fateful trip down to the Arctic, but now he travels the country looking for former lost souls like himself. His best friend in the poem is a hermit, if that tells you anything. After the experience he has been through, he can't just return to normal society. The idea of going to a wedding is very distasteful to him, for example. The low point of the story he tells is when he is left the only man standing on the ship and must suffer the cursing stares of all the dead men.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Theme of Transformation

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner goes through several important transformations at key points, like after the Mariner shoots the albatross, but the most important transformation is the Mariner's conversion from prideful jerk who hates large birds to pious soul who can pray for even the ugliest creatures. The albatross that hangs around his neck represents the burden of his sins, which fall away when he repents and blesses the sea snakes. However, he hasn't simply wiped away his evil deeds after this transformation. His penance continues throughout the rest of his life, every time he feels the painful urge to tell his story.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Theme of The Supernatural

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is Exhibit A for evidence of Coleridge's wild imagination, which was helped along by a moderate-to-heavy opium usage. He takes bits and pieces of mythology and symbolism from Greek and Roman myth and Christian scripture and manufactures a modern ghost-and-zombie story complete with visits from Death and his grisly accomplice, Life-and-Death. The power of supernatural forces over the ship and its crew helps to make the Mariner's own feebleness clear. The supernatural is often related to meteorological (weather) and astrological events in this poem.

And a good south wind sprung up behind; The albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariners' hollo! In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white moon-shine." "God save thee, ancient mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus! – Why lookst thou so?" "With my crossbow I shot the albatross. (I.18-20)

When the Mariner shoots the albatross, the question isn't whether the albatross was bringing the ship good luck, although the poem suggests that it does. The question is: what did the albatross ever do to him? The answer seems to be "nothing," so the Mariner shoots it only because he can. Pride is inherently irrational.

Quote #2 And I had done an hellish thing, And it would work 'em woe: For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow! Nor dim nor red, like an angel's head, The glorious sun uprist: Then all averred, I had killed the bird That brought the fog and mist. 'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, That bring the fog and mist. (II.23-24)

The sailors misinterpret why killing the albatross is such a bad thing. They only care about their own self-interest, and as soon as the fog goes away, they are no longer angry with the Mariner. Maybe that's why they get whacked by Death later on.

Quote #1 And every tongue, through utter drought, Was withered at the root; We could not speak, no more than if We had been choked with soot. (II.33)

The Mariner undergoes several stages of suffering after he kills the albatross. In the first stage, extreme drought and thirst, he shares this punishment with the crew. Also, remember how extreme thirst was also one of the curses suffered by the ghost crew in Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean? We think the writers of that movie knew their Coleridge.

Ozymandias - Class X

Ozymandias Summary

The speaker describes a meeting with someone who has traveled to a place where ancient civilizations once existed. We know from the title that he’s talking about Egypt. The traveler told the speaker a story about an old, fragmented statue in the middle of the desert. The statue is broken apart, but you can still make out the face of a person. The face looks stern and powerful, like a ruler. The sculptor did a good job at expressing the ruler’s personality. The ruler was a wicked guy, but he took care of his people.

On the pedestal near the face, the traveler reads an inscription in which the ruler Ozymandias tells anyone who might happen to pass by, basically, “Look around and see how awesome I am!” But there is no other evidence of his awesomeness in the vicinity of his giant, broken statue. There is just a lot of sand, as far as the eye can see. The traveler ends his story.

Lines 1-2

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said...

• The poem begins immediately with an encounter between the speaker and a traveler that comes from an "antique land."
• We're not sure about this traveler. He could be a native of this "antique" land, or just a tourist returning from his latest trip.
• We don't know where this encounter is taking place; is it on the highway? On a road somewhere? In London? Maybe if we keep reading we'll find out.
• "Antique" means something really old, like that couch at your grandmother's or the bunny ears on top of your television. The traveler could be coming from a place that is ancient, almost as if he were time-traveling. Or he could just be coming from a place that has an older history, like Greece, Rome, or ancient Egypt.

Lines 2-4

…Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies…

• Here the traveler begins his speech. He tells the speaker about a pair of stone legs that are somehow still standing in the middle of the desert.
• Those legs are huge ("vast") and "trunkless." "Trunkless" means "without a torso," so it's a pair of legs with no body.
• "Visage" means face; a face implies a head, so we are being told that the head belonging to this sculpture is partially buried in the sand, near the legs. It is also, like the whole statue, "shatter'd."
• The image described is very strange: a pair of legs, with a head nearby. What happened to the rest of the statue? War? Natural disaster? Napoleon?

Lines 4-6

…whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

• The traveler now gives a fuller description of the "shatter'd visage" lying in the sand.
• As it turns out, the "visage" (or face) isn't completely "shatter'd" because one can still see a "frown," a "wrinkled lip," and a "sneer."
• We still don't know whom this statue represents, but we do know that he was upset about something because he's frowning and sneering. Maybe he thinks that the sneering makes him look powerful. It conveys the "cold command" of an absolute ruler. He can do what he wants without thinking of other people. Heck, he probably commanded the sculptor to make the statue.
• After briefly describing the "visage" (3), the lines shift our attention away from the statue to the guy who made the statue, the "sculptor."
• "Read" here means "understood" or "copied" well. The sculptor was pretty good because he was able to understand and reproduce exactly – to "read" – the facial features and "passions" of our angry man. The sculptor might even grasp things about the ruler that the ruler himself doesn't understand.
• The poem suggests that artists have the ability to perceive the true nature of other people in the present and not just in the past, with the benefit of hindsight.
• "Tell" is a cool word. The statue doesn't literally speak, but the frown and sneer are so perfectly rendered that they give the impression that they are speaking, telling us how great the sculptor was.

Lines 7-8

Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed

• The poem now tells us more about the "passions" of the face depicted on the statue.
• Weirdly, the "passions" still survive because they are "stamp'd on these lifeless things." The "lifeless things" are the fragments of the statue in the desert.
• "Stamp'd" doesn't refer to an ink-stamp, but rather to the artistic process by which the sculptor inscribed the "frown" and "sneer" on his statue's face. The word could also make you think of the ruler's power. Had he wanted to, he could have stamped out any of his subjects who offended him.
• "Mock'd" has two meanings in this passage. It means both "made fun of" and "copied," or "imitated." "Hand" is a stand-in for the sculptor. So the sculptor both belittled and copied this man's passions.
• "The heart that fed" is a tricky phrase; it refers to the heart that "fed" or nourished the passions of the man that the statue represents. But if you think these lines are unclear, you're right. Even scholars have trouble figuring out what they mean.
• The passions not only "survive"; they have also outlived both the sculptor ("the hand that mock'd") and the heart of the man depicted by the statue.
• Note the contrast between life and death. The fragments of the statue are called "lifeless things," the sculptor is dead, and so is the statue's subject. The "passions" though, still "survive."

Lines 9-11

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

• The traveler tells us about an inscription at the foot of statue which finally reveals to us whom this statue represents.
• It is "Ozymandias," the figure named in the title. "Ozymandias" was one of several Greek names for Ramses II of Egypt. For more, see "What's Up with the Title."
• The inscription suggests that Ozymandias is arrogant, or at least that he has grand ideas about his own power: he calls himself the "king of kings."
• Ozymandias also brags about his "works." Maybe he's referring to the famous temples he constructed at Abu Simbel or Thebes. He could also be calling attention to the numerous colossal statues of him, such as the one described in this poem.
• Ozymandias's speech is ambiguous here. On the one hand he tells the "mighty" to "despair" because their achievements will never equal his "works." On the other hand, he might be telling the "mighty" to "despair" as a kind of warning, saying something like "Don't get your hopes up guys because your statues, works, political regimes, etc. will eventually be destroyed or fade away, with nothing to recall them but a dilapidated statue half-buried in the sand."

12-14

Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

• After the traveler recites the inscription, he resumes his description of the statue and the surrounding area.
• We are reminded again that "nothing" remains besides the head, legs, and pedestal; as if we didn't know the statue has been destroyed, the traveler tells us again that it is a "colossal wreck."
• The very size of the statue – "colossal" – emphasizes the scope of Ozymandias's ambitions as well; it's almost as if because he thinks he's the "king of kings" (10), he also has to build a really big statue.
• To complement the "decay" of the statue, the traveler describes a desolate and barren desert that seems to go on forever: the "sands stretch far away."
• The statue is the only thing in this barren, flat desert. There was probably once a temple or something nearby, but it's long gone. The "sands" are "lone," which means whatever else used to be "beside" the statue has been destroyed or buried.
• Several words in these lines start with the same letter; for example "besides," "boundless," and "bare"; "remains" and "round"; "lone" and "level"; "sands" and "stretch." Using multiple words with the same initial letter is called alliteration.

Statues and Sculpting

Symbol Analysis

Because the poem is inspired by a statue of Ramses II, we shouldn't be surprised to find so many references to this statue and to sculpting more generally. The "colossal" size of the statue is a symbol of Ramses's lofty self-promotion royal ambition. But statues and sculpture aren't all bad in this poem; they are also a vehicle for the poet to explore questions about the longevity of art, and its ability to capture "passions" (6) in a "lifeless" (7) medium like stones (or painting or even poetry).

• Line 2: The traveler describes two "legs of stone" with no torso, our first indication that the statue is partly destroyed.
• Line 4: The head of the statue is "shatter'd" and partially buried in the sand. "Visage" is a stand-in for the statue's head. (The use of one part of any object or entity to describe the whole is called synecdoche.)
• Line 6-7: The sculptor was pretty good at representing Ramses's "passions" in the statue, which are "stamp'd" or engraved in stone. Even though the stones are "lifeless," they paradoxically give life to the "passions" that still "survive." There are three words in these two lines that start with "s"; the use of multiple words starting with the same letter is called alliteration.
• Line 8: The "hand that mock'd" is another reference to the sculptor and the work of imitation he performs. "Hand" is another example of synecdoche, in which a part (the hand) stands in for the whole (the sculptor).
• Line 9: Describes the base of the statue and the boast engraved on it.
• Line 11: The inscription refers to "works," which might be a reference to other statues, works of art, or monuments commissioned by Ozymandias. This line is ambiguous; Ozymandias could be telling the mighty to despair because their works will never be as good as his or he could be telling them to despair because their works will all eventually crumble just like his. Ozymandias clearly doesn't intend this second meaning, but it's there whether he wants it or not. That's called dramatic irony.
• Line 13: The poem again reminds us that there is a huge statue in the desert that is now a "colossal wreck."

Destruction

Symbol Analysis

The statue that inspired the poem was partially destroyed, and the poem frequently reminds us that the statue is in ruins. The dilapidated state of the statue symbolizes not only the erosive processes of time, but also the transience of political leaders and regimes.

• Line 2: The "legs" of the statue don't have a torso ("trunkless").
• Line 4: The statue's head is "shatter'd" and partly buried in the sand.
• Line 11: The inscription implores the viewer to "look on" Ozymandias's "works." One of those "works" is the statue described in the poem, and it's only a pair of legs and a "shatter'd" head.
• Line 12-13: The statue is described as in a state of "decay" and as a "colossal wreck."
• Line 13-14: We're assuming this statue wasn't always in the middle of nowhere – there must have been some kind of temple or pyramid nearby. Not anymore; the area around the statue is "bare" and the desert is "lone," or empty. The traveler calls our attention to the barrenness of the desert through the extensive use of alliteration (beginning multiple words with the same letter): "boundless and bare," "lone and level," "sands stretch."

Life

Symbol Analysis

There is a lot of death in this poem; the figure represented in the statue is dead, along with the civilization to which he belonged. The statue is destroyed, and so it too is, in some sense, dead. And yet amidst all the death, there are several images of life that give the poem a sense of balance, however slight.

• Lines 1-2: Most of the poem describes a statue, but these first two lines describe an encounter between two living people, the speaker and a "traveler from an antique land."
• Line 6-7: The description of the "sculptor" making a statue introduces another living figure into the poem, as does the reference to the "passions" of Ozymandias. Furthermore, even though the sculpture is "lifeless," the passions still "survive."

Passions and Feelings

Symbol Analysis

While most of the poem describes a statue, the traveler makes a point of telling us that Ozymandias's "passions" still survive: they are "stamp'd" on the statue, giving all those who view the statue a sense of what Ozymandias's disposition was like, or at least what it was like when the statue was made.

• Lines 4-5: The poem describes the features on the face of the statue and, by extension, the features of Ozymandias. He must have been angry about something because his face has a "sneer," a "frown," and a "wrinkled lip."
• Line 6: We are told that the sculptor "well those passions read," that he was somehow able to capture them fairly well in his statue.
• Line 8: The "heart" is the organ most often linked to feelings and passions; it "fed" the passions depicted in the statue. Because the heart didn't literally "feed" the passions, "fed" here is a metaphor.

Ozymandias: Rhyme, Form & Meter

We’ll show you the poem’s blueprints, and we’ll listen for the music behind the words.

Sonnet in Pentameter

"Ozymandias" takes the form of a sonnet in iambic pentameter. A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem, whose ideal form is often attributed to the great Italian poet Petrarch. The Petrarchan sonnet is structured as an octave (8 lines) and a sestet (6 lines). The octave often proposes a problem or concern that the sestet resolves or otherwise engages. The ninth line – the first line of the sestet – marks a shift in the direction of the poem and is frequently called the "turn" or, for you Italian scholars, the volta. While the rhyme scheme of the octave is ABBA ABBA, the rhyme scheme of the sestet is more flexible; two of the most common are CDCDCD and CDECDE.

The other major sonnet form is the Shakespearean or English sonnet; it too has fourteen lines, but is structured as a series of three quatrains (of four lines each) and a concluding couplet (consisting of two consecutive rhyming lines). The Shakespearean sonnet is in iambic pentameter and follows the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.

Shelley's sonnet is a strange mixture of these two forms. It is Petrarchan in that the poem is structured as a group of eight lines (octave) and a group of six lines (the sestet). The rhyme scheme is initially Shakespearean, as the first four lines rhyme ABAB. But then the poem gets strange: at lines 5-8 the rhyme scheme is ACDC, rather than the expected CDCD. For lines 9-12, the rhyme scheme is EDEF, rather than EFEF. Finally, instead of a concluding couplet we get another EF group. The entire rhyme scheme can be schematized as follows: ABABACDCEDEFEF.

The poem is written in pentameter, meaning there are five (penta-) groups of two syllables in each line. While you've probably heard of iambic pentameter, Shelley's poem makes it really hard to use that designation. Iambic pentameter means that each line contains five feet or groups, each of which contains an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in this line:

half-sunk, a shatt-er'd vis-age lies, whose b>frown (4)

Many of the lines in the poem, however, refuse to conform to this pattern. Take line 12 for example:

No-thing be-side re-mains: round the de-cay

The line begins with a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable; this is called a trochee, and it's the reverse of an iamb. After the initial trochee, we get two iambs, but then we go back to a trochee with "round the," finally ending with an iamb; there's no name for this jumping around! This refusal to conform to any specific meter is evident throughout the poem, and makes it difficult to classify with a simple formula like iambic pentameter.

Speaker Point of View

Who is the speaker, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?

There are several different voices in this poem that put some distance between us and Ozymandias. First there is the speaker of the poem, you know the guy who meets the traveler from an "antique land." It's almost as if the speaker has just stopped for the night at a hotel, or stepped into an unfamiliar bar, and happens to bump into a well-traveled guy. The speaker doesn't hang around very long before handing the microphone over to the traveler, whose voice occupies the remainder of the poem. One can imagine a movie based on this storyline: the speaker meets a strange guy who then narrates his experiences, which make up the rest of the film.

We don't know a whole lot about this traveler; he could be a native of the "antique land" (1), a tourist who has visited it, or even a guy who just stepped out of a time machine. He seems like one of those guys you'd meet in a youth hostel who has all kinds of cool stories but no real place to call home other than the road; he is a "traveler" after all, and he clearly knows how to give a really dramatic description – just note the bleak picture that is painted of the "lone and level sands" stretching "far away" (14) to see what we mean.

Most of the poem consists of the traveler's description of the statue lying in the desert, except for the two lines in the middle where he tells us what the inscription on the statue says; and while the traveler speaks these lines, they really belong to Ozymandias, making him, in a sense, the third speaker in this polyphonic (or many-voiced) poem.

Ozymandias Theme of Transience

"Ozymandias" is obsessed with transience; the very fact that the statue is a "colossal wreck" (13) says loudly and clearly that some things just don't last forever. But the poem isn't just about how really big statues eventually succumb to the ravages of time; the statue is a symbol of Ozymandias's ambition, pride, and absolute power, and thus the poem also implies that kingdoms and political regimes will eventually crumble, leaving no trace of their existence except, perhaps, pathetic statues that no longer even have torsos.

Ozymandias Theme of Pride

In the inscription on the pedestal Ozymandias calls himself the "king of kings" while also implying that his "works" – works of art like the statue, pyramids, that sort of thing – are the best around (10). Ozymandias thinks pretty highly of himself and of what he's achieved, both politically and artistically. The fact that he commissions this "colossal" statue with "vast legs" points to his sense of pride, while the statue's fragmentary state indicates the emptiness (at least in the long term) of Ozymandias's boast.

Ozymandias Theme of Art and Culture

"Ozymandias" was inspired by a statue, and it's no surprise that art is one of this poem's themes. The traveler makes a point of telling us that the statue was made by a really skilled sculptor, and the poem as a whole explores the question of art's longevity. The statue is in part a stand-in or substitute for all kinds of art (painting, poetry, etc.), and the poem asks us to think not just about sculpture, but about the fate of other arts as well.

Ozymandias Theme of Man and the Natural World

"Ozymandias" describes a statue, and statues are made from rocks and stones found in nature. While the poem explores the way in which art necessarily involves some kind of engagement with the natural world, it also thinks about how nature might fight back. The statue's head is half-buried in the sand, after all, and we are left wondering what role the erosive force of dust storms, wind, and rain played in its destruction.

Ozymandias Transience Quotes Page 1

How we cite the quotes:
(line numbers)

Quote #1 I met a traveler from an antique land (1)

The very fact that the "land" is "antique" suggests that it is outdated, kind of like dial-up internet. The speaker implies that the traveler is coming from a place that is more primitive or older than the speaker's, a place that used to be home to a civilization and culture that has passed away.

Quote #2 …Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies (2-4)

The statue is on its last legs; it has no torso, and the surrounding desert is doing its best to bury the "shatter'd" head. We are not told how the statue has come to be in this state, though we might infer that since it is located in an "antique land," perhaps it too has succumbed to the erosive force of time, like a lot of antiquities. This ancient object, too, is about to vanish; one can't help thinking that the legs will eventually suffer the same fate as the "shatter'd visage."

Quote #3 Nothing beside remains; round the decay of that colossal wreck (12-13)

Not only is most of the statue gone, but there isn't anything else around. The temples, palaces and whatever else might have adorned this landscape have all disappeared, leaving "nothing" but two legs and a head. "Decay" is an important word here; it implies that the statue has been slowly rotting or crumbling over a long period of time, and that it will eventually be completely destroyed or buried. It also suggests that the statue was once living, perhaps implying something about the status of art and its eventual fate.

Ozymandias Pride Quotes Page 1

How we cite the quotes:
(line numbers)

Quote #1 ...whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command (4-5)

We know that later in the poem Ozymandias will brag about the greatness of his works, but here he seems less than satisfied with something, as if he thinks his works could be better. We can imagine the sculptor hammering away at the statue and Ozymandias giving him a dirty look because something about it just isn't right. Alternatively, perhaps Ozymandias was perpetually frowning because his empire just wasn't good enough, or big enough.

Quote #2 "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair" (10)

There is a lot of arrogance in this statement, and it's almost as if he were saying that his name means "king of kings." He brags about his "works" (statues like the one described, pyramids, etc.) as well, telling the "Mighty" to "despair" because their works will never be as good or as his. Ironically, Ozymandias's works are nowhere to be seen – all that's left is a barren desert and this broken statue. His pride is made to look stupid because his "works" are all gone, except for this fragmented statue that, quite literally, is on its last legs.

Ozymandias Art and Culture Quotes Page 1

How we cite the quotes:
(line numbers)

Quote #1 Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, half-sunk A shatter'd visage lies (2-4)

These lines describe a very strange image; just imagine two legs in the middle of the desert, with a head partly submerged nearby. When we imagine a desert, we often imagine a really hot place with lots of sand that is, appropriately, deserted. The "culture" that has produced the "art" has disappeared or, better yet, has sunk beneath the sand, just like the statue's head. The partially-shrunken head is a symbol of a vanishing, "antique" culture. And yet part of the statue is still "standing." It's hard to account for this, but it could be because its "colossal" dimensions make it hard to destroy, or because art somehow finds a way to persist.

Quote #2 ...whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed (4-7)

These lines suggest that good art has the ability to embody and preserve passions over several thousand years; the statue is like a piece of fossilized amber, but instead of a prehistoric fly, what remains are Ozymandias's passions, kept neatly encased for later viewers. The preservation of the passions contrasts with the dilapidated state of the statue. Even though the statue is dead, it still possesses a strange life-preserving power; this is a bizarre state of affairs indeed. It suggests that art is not useless decoration, but can in fact play an important documentary role.

Ozymandias Man and the Natural World Quotes Page 1

How we cite the quotes:
(line numbers)

Quote #1 Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies (2-4)

These lines give us several images of nature: the "stone," the "desert," and the "sand." The "stone" reminds us that the statue is a product of nature in some sense; the way in which the legs are standing in the sand suggests something similar, as if they were just emerging from the sand or nature were giving birth to them. "Half-sunk" calls to mind images of the sea: it's as if the head is being reclaimed by an unforgiving ocean of sand. The materials used to make the statue are slowly returning to the place from where they came, completing a kind of natural cycle of life and death.

Quote #2 those passions... which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things (6-7)

"Lifeless" is an incredibly rich word in this passage. That the pieces of the statue are now "lifeless" suggests that they were in fact once alive. Perhaps a work of art is alive when it's complete or, rather, not in fragments like the statue of Ozymandias. Or perhaps it has something to do with the role or function of the work of art in a particular culture. Because the surrounding temples and civilization have been destroyed, the statue no longer functions as a tribute to, or symbol of, Ozymandias's political power; it is "dead" because it is now an artistic curiosity, an object for museum-goers to look at and poets to write about rather than a statue with a specific function within a particular culture.

Quote #3 …lone and level sands stretch far away (14)

Nature has the final victory in this poem: the statue is almost gone, having suffered the same fate as the civilization that produced it. Ozymandias's empire once "stretch[ed] far away," but now it is nature – embodied by the "lone and level sands" – that extends its empire. Interestingly, the sands are "lone" even though there is a statue still there, as if the statue is so insignificant relative to nature that it is almost not worth mentioning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncxR5JKLVA8